The Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Cyber Crime Cell nabbed a gang in Lahore on Friday that was allegedly making money from the “dark web” through child pornography, Muhammad Shehzad reports for The Express Tribune.
According to the preliminary inquiry, at least 10 people have been sexually exploited. Suspects living in a private housing society situated in Lahore would lure victims through money or other means, rape them and film the entire process.
According to the FIA, the suspects extorted money from the victims and sexually assaulted them by threatening to go viral with their obscene tapes if they refused.
The complainant, father of a victim, said that the accused, Arslan Arshad and Ammad Shahzad, used to to sexually assault and videotape children of their neighbourhood without their consent. They would monetise it by uploading it to the internet. He said that his son was also trapped by them. The suspects on February 15 took the victim to the upper portion of his house and sexually assaulted him and also recorded a video.
After receiving the plea, the FIA initiated an investigation and arrested suspect Abid Ali in the Arifwala tehsil of Pakpattan district.
Officials also discovered a big amount of films of child pornography on his phone, and the main suspect, Arslan, was seen raping youngsters in the videos.
FIA Cyber Crime Cell Lahore has registered a case against the accused persons under Section 20, 21 and 22 of The Prevention of Electronic Crime Act (PECA) 2016 and section 109 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
The district and sessions court in Hafizabad, Punjab, announced the death penalty to a father for raping his daughter, along with a fine of 0.5 million,, reports Daily Pakistan.
According to details, the man was proven guilty on Wednesday by the court, after the paternal grandfather of the victim approached law enforcement personnel and registered the heinous crime against his own son for raping his granddaughter in April.
Meanwhile, the culprit Nasir Ali denied all the accusations and alleged that his father was framing him to get his cattle in possession.
However, during the trial, the prosecution argued that the grandfather was informed by his granddaughter about the sexual assault subjected on her by her father multiple times. Furthermore, the medical reports prove the sexual abuse of the daughter.
The judge also stated in his written verdict that the perpetrator does not deserve any leniency for this horrible crime.
Sitara-i-Imtiaz (third-highest honour and civilian award in Pakistan) holder and founder of a software company “Afiniti” Zia Chishti has been dismissed by his own software company following the allegations of sexual assault by a 23-year-old against him.
The statement on the company’s website reads, “The Board of Directors of Afiniti announces that Mr. Zia Chishti has stepped down from his role as Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and Director of Afiniti, effective immediately. The Board will make additional organisational announcements in the coming days.”
Tatiana Spottiswoode, a former Afiniti employee and Zia’s friend’s daughter testified before a US (United States) congressional committee and accused Chishti of sexually abusing her.
In her testimony, she said that she joined Afiniti on Chishti’s insistence in 2016 and told the committee her contract included an arbitration agreement with a “strong confidentiality clause” that had prevented her from speaking out about the alleged assaults.
Spottiswoode said her body was “covered with scratches, cuts, and contusions”.
“I had bruises around my neck that looked like I had been strangled, a large bump on my head, and a black eye. A nurse at the hospital said I had the symptoms of a concussion,” she added.
However, the software company said it had “investigated Spottiswoode’s claims with independent counsel and concluded that the arbitral decision she references was erroneous”.
The news also affected the Pakistan Stock Market on Thursday as Chishti is also the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of TRG (The Resource Group) Pakistan Limited, reports Dawn.
A mentally challenged girl has allegedly been raped in Jhelum, reports Geo Urdu.
Inspector-General (IG) Punjab Police Rao Sardar Ali Khan has taken notice of the incident and demanded a report.
Rao Sardar has also reportedly directed the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) Jhelum to arrest the accused and to assure the girl’s family of all possible cooperation.
This is not the first time that a horrible incident like this has taken place in Jhelum. Earlier, a gang-rape of a girl came to light and the police arrested the four accused men in the incident.
Zia Chishti, Sitara-i-Imtiaz (third-highest honour and civilian award in Pakistan) holder and founder of a multi-dollar company “Afiniti”, has been accused by a 23-year-old Tatiana Spottiswoode of sexually abusing her, reports The Guardian.
Spottiswoode, who is a Columbia University law student and daughter of Chishti’s friend, told the United States (US) House of Representatives judiciary committee that Chishti had told her “he should have had sex with me when I was 13 years old”.
WATCH: Tatiana Spottiswoode shares her devastating story of the workplace sexual violence she experienced and the subsequent, secret arbitration process she was forced to endure. #EndForcedArbitrationpic.twitter.com/eRmhEURMob
The committee released images on Wednesday allegedly showing neck injuries sustained by Spottiswoode.
Spottiswoode, who joined Afiniti on Chishti’s insistence in 2016, told the committee her contract included an arbitration agreement with a “strong confidentiality clause” that had prevented her from speaking out about the alleged assaults.
Trigger Warning!
She said, “Over the next 18 months he [Chishti] oscillated between pressuring me for sex and punishing me. When I rebuffed him he humiliated me in front of co-workers and then ignored me completely, causing me to fear for my job.”
She said that on a work trip to Brazil she “began to worry that, in addition to wanting sex, Chishti wanted to hurt me and punish me for rejecting him”.
“I felt completely trapped and hopeless. I was 23 and very far from home,” she told the committee. “I didn’t want to lose my job, I didn’t want him to get any angrier, I did not feel that anyone would protect me and I was too tired to argue with him anymore. I went to his room where he beat me while having sex with me.”
Spottiswoode said her body was “covered with scratches, cuts, and contusions”.
“I had bruises around my neck that looked like I had been strangled, a large bump on my head, and a black eye. A nurse at the hospital said I had the symptoms of a concussion,” she said.
Afiniti, which also employs Princess Beatrice, said Chishti “strongly disputes all accusations against him” and termed Spottiswoode’s claims “wrong”.
After a detailed string of allegations made against the Sitara-i-Imtiaz holder, former British Prime Minister (PM) David Cameron announced that he has quit his role at the software company.
The former PM stood down as chair of its advisory board.
The Rawalpindi police have arrested a school teacher for allegedly raping a seven-year-old student, reports Tahir Naseer for Dawn.
Police spokesperson Sajjadul Hassan told Dawn that the suspect was taken into custody on Wednesday night.
The case was registered at Saddar Wah Cantt police station on the complaint of the victim’s mother.
According to the first information report (FIR) registered on November 16, the mother said her daughter, A*, aged six or seven, was subjected to rape when she was at school.
The complainant said she took her daughter to the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital for a medical examination but was told by the hospital staff to come back with the police.
“I request that justice be provided to my daughter by initiating legal proceedings against the school teacher,” the mother requested in the FIR.
Potohar Division Superintendent of Police Tasawar Iqbal said a “zero-tolerance policy” on violence, abuse and harassment against women and children was being ensured.
A woman has reportedly been tortured and raped by a university student in the underpass of the Metro Bus Station in Rehmanabad, reports Dawn.
According to the Police Investigating Officer (IO), the suspect, identified as Talal Munir, is studying Information Technology (IT). He was arrested by the local police right after the First Information Report (FIR).
The survivor is a resident of Lahore. She complained to New Town police that she informed her brother about a job in a boys’ hostel, which was advertised on the Facebook account of the suspect.
According to her statement, her brother contacted the suspect. She then travelled to Rawalpindi with her aunt.
The victim said that upon reaching the location, the suspect forcibly took her to a boy’s dormitory, where he began slapping her and closed the door from inside. Later, she said she was taken to the underpass and raped.
Police said the victim was taken to a hospital for medical examination. However, a Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) test of both the victim and the suspect is yet to be conducted.
Pakistan has been plagued by episodes of rape and abuse over the years that it has now become common to the extent that people have started normalising such acts.
Back in 2002, Mukhtaran Mai’s gang-rape was one of the most horrifying gang-rape incidents that were reported.
Another major incident that took place in 2014 was the Layyah gang-rape case, where a 20-year-old girl after being gang-raped, was found hanging from a tree. Such inhumane incidents haven’t stopped even now.
Two men stole her money and the jewellery she had on her. They then raped her in front of her two children in a nearby field and escaped.
The incident sparked national outrage but what happened next? Before the arrest of the two culprits, questions like “Why was she out on the motorway so late without a brother or husband? Why didn’t she check her gas tank before leaving the house? And if she had to travel, why didn’t she take the more public GT Road route?” were asked because, sadly, in our country ‘getting raped’ is the woman’s fault. Apparently, a woman gets raped because ‘she was driving alone, on the wrong road, at the wrong time, in the wrong place’.
Later, the motorway rapists were sentenced to death but rape cases continued to rise in Pakistan.
On October 12, 2020, our team started counting rape cases on a daily basis from 13 different sources, which included these newspapers: Dawn, The News, The Express Tribune, The Nation, Pakistan Today, Daily Times, Nawa-e-Waqt, Daily Jang. And from these websites: ARY News, Geo News Samaa News Dunya News Aaj News.
It is to be noted that the given stats only include the reported incidents, not the ones that go unreported.
During the process, we have included reported rape cases of girls, boys, women, men and transgenders. Moreover, we have divided the rape cases province-wise, according to which Punjab till date has the highest number of rape cases, i.e. 936 rape cases and 44 attempted incidents.
It has been a year since we have started posting our rape template daily to analyse the record of reported rape cases. We have collected the data of the entire year (October 12, 2020 to October 12, 2021) and prepared slides of reported cases of each month provinces-wise.
Provinces Categorisation:
Sindh
Till date, Sindh has recorded a total of 60 reported rape cases in which 10 are attempted incidents. 11.6 per cent of cases were reported in the month of April and August as per the graph.
Punjab
Punjab has recorded a total of 936 reported rape cases in which 44 are attempted incidents until now. 13 per cent of cases were reported in August.
Islamabad
The capital has recorded a total of 13 reported rape cases which no attempted cases until now. The reported cases are relatively low as compared to other provinces’ data. However, 38.46 per cent of rape cases were reported in June this year.
Balochistan
Balochistan has reported a total of 11 reported rape cases. Most of the months show zero reported rape cases, according to the graph.
KPK
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) has reported a total of 20 reported rape cases of which 2 were attempted incidents. The numbers throughout the months are quite the same.
Deaths (province-wise)
As per the graph, the death rate was high in the month of January i.e.14.5 per cent.
Numbers of the recorded cases after the highlighted incidents of 2021
After the following incidents, we noticed an increase in the reporting of rape cases.
Mufti Aziz-ur-Rehman: sexual assault case
On June 17, police registered a criminal complaint against Mufti Aziz after a male student accused him of sexual abuse. In the aftermath of a viral graphic video that showed Mufti engaging in sexual intercourse with the male student, who was the victim, the action was taken against Mufti Aziz. After the incident, we noticed an increase of 10.7 per cent in the reporting of rape cases in the month of June.
Usman Mirza’s sexual assault on a couple
Usman Mirza was arrested on July 7. He was seen torturing and assaulting a couple. He was also seen stripping naked a woman in the video. The video sparked outrage across Pakistan. After the petrifying incident, an increase of 9 per cent was observed in the reporting of rape cases in the month of July.
Noor Mukadam’s murder case
On July 20, Noor Mukadam, daughter of former Pakistani diplomat Shaukat Mukadam, was raped, beheaded and murdered, in a posh neighbourhood of Islamabad in July. Noor’s murder led to nationwide protests. After her murder, as per the reported cases we have monitored, there was an increase of 12.6 per cent in the month of August.
There are many more cases that are still unreported due to various reasons.
According to The News, official statistics obtained from the Police, Law, and Justice Commission of Pakistan, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Women’s Foundation, and provincial welfare agencies in 2020 revealed that there are at least 11 rape cases reported in Pakistan every day with over 22,000 rape cases reported to the police across the country in the last six years.
Since the Minar-e-Pakistan incident, the number of sexual harassment cases has increased up to 300 per cent in Lahore.
A police report stated that during the past 1.5 months, 642 cases of sexual harassment were registered under sections 354, 354-A and 509-B as compared to the number of incidents up to less than 150 that had been reported before August 14, reports ARY News.
Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Shariq Jamal Khan said that the ratio of harassment cases was high in the past but previously people used to avoid registering cases.
He added that the actions related to the accused in the incident of Greater Iqbal Park have encouraged the women to report such cases. He said that the authorities will take strict action in such cases.
Federal Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Mazari, while presenting a report on the Minar-e-Pakistan incident to the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights, has said that there should be a specific time slot for women to visit parks and men should not be allowed in during that time.
“Why are restrictions being imposed on women?” questioned Mazari.
“It has been observed that most of the problems are caused by the youth. Curbs should be imposed on them to teach the youth a lesson,” she added.
In an update on the case, three suspects have confessed to assaulting Ayesha Akram at Minar-e-Pakistan. In addition, a total of five suspects have been identified by Ayesha Akram, Geo News has reported.
